< Page:Leaves of Grass (1860).djvu
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Chants' Democratic.
The thought of fruitage,
Of Death, (the life greater)—of seeds dropping into the ground—of birth,
Of the steady concentration of America, inland, upward, to impregnable and swarming places,
Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and the rest, are to be,
Of what a few years will show there in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the rest,
Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for—and of what all the sights, North, South, East and West, are;
Of the temporary use of materials for identity's sake,
Of departing—of the growth of a mightier race than any yet,
Of myself, soon, perhaps, closing up my songs by these shores,
Of California—of Oregon—and of me journeying hence to live and sing there;
Of the Western Sea—of the spread inland between it and the spinal river,
Of the great pastoral area, athletic and feminine,
Of all sloping down there where the fresh free-giver, the mother, the Mississippi flows—and Westward still;
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